Impossibilities exist all the time in sports. It’s one of the reasons why we play, watch and often obsess over games. We want to feel our throats clutch when the improbable happens, when the tiniest chance turns into something unexpectedly wild and grand.

But when Fabrice Muamba sat up in his hospitable bed and beamed wide—well this was a moment that defied all logic. A fortnight ago he suffered cardiac arrest during a game, was declared “dead” for 78 minutes and now here he was, eyes clear and smile bright, in a picture tweeted around the world?

Watch This

This didn’t simply hurdle the impossible. This vaulted over it, ran circles around it, and then celebrated with a victory dance and a toast.

Perhaps you’ve never heard of Muamba. That’s understandable since he doesn’t shoot jumpers or throw fastballs on this side of the pond. His game is soccer, another reason why certain folks in these parts might shrug.

But if ever there were a universal story that stunned the senses and now gives reason to cheer, it is sitting up inside a London hospital room and making a recovery that is beyond miraculous.

Watch sports long enough and they can lead you to places that are often amazing and sometimes frightening. They can take you to that October day in New Jersey when Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand, collided with an Army player on a kickoff return. LeGrand landed hard, tried to get up and couldn’t. Paralyzed from the neck down, there were fears that LeGrand would die there on the field, or spend the rest of his life as a quadriplegic on a respirator.

And sports can take you back to that stadium one year later, in October 2011, as LeGrand led Rutgers onto the turf in his wheelchair—his first trip through the tunnel since that horrible Saturday when he suffered spinal cord damage and two fractured vertebrae. After doctors initially gave him a zero to five percent chance of recovering neurological function, he eventually regained sensation in his limbs. He knows, with every ounce of his being, that one day he'll walk again.

On the wintery day LeGrand’s odyssey took a brilliant turn via his wheelchair zooming through that tunnel, he tweeted: “So I left tire tracks in the snow yesterday as I lead my team out next time will be footprints.”

And then came this tweet on March 31: “The way I'm feeling right now it's like I can run a whole marathon. Best #bELieve it will happen.”

It’s exhilarating how far the human spirit can reach. When you view sports through this prism—through two different athletes playing two different sports on two different spots on the planet—impossibilities tend to blur.

Muamba survived because of the unbelievable dedication and strength of others. Midway through an FA Cup quarterfinal against Tottenham on March 17, the 23-year-old midfielder collapsed on the pitch and basically died in front of millions of viewers.

But a Tottenham fan who’s also a cardiologist was in the stands at White Hart Lane. He saw Muamba suddenly crumble, not even putting out his arms to stop the fall. He wasn’t struck or hit, he just dropped. Seconds passed before other players even noticed.

Dr. Andrew Deaner, a Spurs supporter attending the game with his brothers, leaped from his seat and persuaded one of the ushers to let him on the field. The stadium had gone silent, the match abandoned.

Every minute lost before applying CPR decreases the chances of survival by 10 percent. There on the grass, Deaner and team doctors gave Muamba mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions to help pump blood through his body. Soon 35,000 began singing Fabrice Muamba’s name.

The Guardian’s Amy Lawrence described "a groundswell, a primal roar, chanting Fabrice's name. The Tottenham fans joined in. They chanted his name and then they started chanting, 'Come on!' It was like there was a compulsion to encourage him to get up, wake up.”

She called it “easily the worst thing I have seen inside a football ground in more than 30 years following the game.”

Muamba had two defibrillation shocks on the field, another in the tunnel, 12 more in the ambulance for 15 total. Bolton team doctor Jonathan Tobin said medics tried unsuccessfully to revive Muamba for 48 minutes before he arrived at the hospital, and then it took another 30 minutes before his heart started beating on its own.

In effect, said Tobin, Muamba “was dead” for those 78 minutes.

"It's very unusual to look after a very fit 23-year-old, who's been playing football for 40 minutes before he collapsed, and having CPR started almost immediately by people who are trained,” said Deaner, the Tottenham fan who helped save the Bolton player’s life.

"All his blood vessels were already dilated and he had all the enzymes that help muscles perform to their absolute optimum, and maybe that protected him. Something happened that meant he survived."

They’ve yet to discover Muamba’s cause of cardiac arrest; he had undergone a routine screening for heart defects in August. He’s now breathing independently, moving about and keeping a watchful eye from his hospital bed as his Bolton teammates continue to win games and fight off relegation.

The support for Muamba around the world has been extraordinary. Born in Zaire, he immigrated to London as a child with his family, overcoming hardship as a refugee to become a bright success. He’s known for his charisma, his charitable acts, for representing England at the Under-21 level.

So the picture his fiancée Shauna Magunda tweeted of Muamba sitting and smiling was a mighty jolt. The seemingly impossible, we’re reminded again, doesn’t always win.